Layer mask — painting with White does nothing(??)

X
Posted By
xenophon
Aug 24, 2006
Views
386
Replies
7
Status
Closed

[Photoshop 6.0]

After a long time doing things the hard way (eraser tool and a *lot* of "do-overs") I saw a thread regarding using layer masks for compositing multiple images into a collage. "Hmm," I thought, "that sounds a lot easier, and reversible, too." So, I decided to try it today.

One of my brother Eagles celebrated his 93rd birthday recently and I wanted to composite 5-6 photos of the celebration into a single collage image for the newsletter. I loaded a couple of the images, created a working layer copy for each, then added a layer mask to each working layer. Grabbed a large soft brush and set it to black and went to work. Great! Painting with black easily got rid of portions of the individual images I didn’t want. Then I grabbed the move tool, did a little repositioning of each layer to adjust the ultimate boundaries between the image portions in the collage.

Here’s where it gets wierd. After adjusting the positions, I went back to the brush, changed the brush color to white, and tried to add back in some of the stuff previously eliminated. Nothing. No white shows on the mask icon in the layers palette, no original image restored.

Now, I can immediately switch back to black and start erasing again, and I can see the little bounding box on the layer mask icon, so I know I have the mask properly selected. Repeated switching back and forth between white and black simply results in a growing area of black, the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).

This is probably something very simple that I am missing due to my lack of experience with layer masking, but it’s got me stumped. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. Thanks.

Scott

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
———————————————————- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
———————————————————- http://www.usenet.com

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

B
BD
Aug 24, 2006
This is probably something very simple that I am missing due to my lack of experience with layer masking, but it’s got me stumped. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. Thanks.

I’ve worked with layer masks *a bit*, and I frequently get de-railed because I had been editing a layer as well, and forgot to do something specific to get back to where I could edit the layer mask.

For example: I have an image with two layers, I’m working with a layer mask, and I’m also using a cloner to manipulate one of the layers.

I’ve often forgotten to *specifically* click on the layer mask thumbnail itself over to the right – in which case I’m still working on the image (the layer) itself.

I’ve also often forgotten to change the tool I’m working from a cloner back to a paintbrush – in which case I’m cloning one part of the layer mask to the other, which may have absolutely no effect.

So just double-check that both the layer mask itself (as opposed to the image that it is masking), and the tool you want to use on that mask (ie a brush) are both selected.

That’s the only useful suggestion I have. 😉
MH
Mike Hyndman
Aug 24, 2006
"xenophon" wrote in message
[Photoshop 6.0]

After a long time doing things the hard way (eraser tool and a *lot* of "do-overs") I saw a thread regarding using layer masks for compositing multiple images into a collage. "Hmm," I thought, "that sounds a lot easier, and reversible, too." So, I decided to try it today.
One of my brother Eagles celebrated his 93rd birthday recently and I wanted to composite 5-6 photos of the celebration into a single collage image for the newsletter. I loaded a couple of the images, created a working layer copy for each, then added a layer mask to each working layer. Grabbed a large soft brush and set it to black and went to work. Great! Painting with black easily got rid of portions of the individual images I didn’t want. Then I grabbed the move tool, did a little repositioning of each layer to adjust the ultimate boundaries between the image portions in the collage.

Here’s where it gets wierd. After adjusting the positions, I went back to the brush, changed the brush color to white, and tried to add back in some of the stuff previously eliminated. Nothing. No white shows on the mask icon in the layers palette, no original image restored.

Now, I can immediately switch back to black and start erasing again, and I can see the little bounding box on the layer mask icon, so I know I have the mask properly selected. Repeated switching back and forth between white and black simply results in a growing area of black, the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).
This is probably something very simple that I am missing due to my lack of experience with layer masking, but it’s got me stumped. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. Thanks.

Scott
‘Tis a mystery! The only times I have seen something similar is when both black and white didn’t seem to work because
i) wasn’t working in normal mode and
ii) the wrong layer was active.
Sadly the above doesn’t seem to apply in your case. When the unexplained starts to happen, there is nothing to lose by deleting your prefs file. Restart PS with the ctrl+alt+shift keys depressed.

Try this.
Open a new image and duplicate the layer.
Add a layer mask to the new layer.
Hit D on the keyboard to set the colours to black and white. Select the brush tool and with the layer mask active (selected), paint on the image with black to make the painted area transparent (nothing below it) Hit X on the keyboard to reverse the colours and repaint the transparent area to restore it to original state.
MR
Mike Russell
Aug 24, 2006
"xenophon" wrote in message
… the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).

This sounds like you have your brush set to darken mode. When chasing a problem like this, simplify. Try painting on a new image and see if you can get both black and white.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/
SG
Scott Glasgow
Aug 24, 2006
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
"xenophon" wrote in message
… the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).

This sounds like you have your brush set to darken mode. When chasing a problem like this, simplify. Try painting on a new image and see if you can get both black and white.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/

Could be Mike. I took Mike Hyndman’s advice (since I tend to recommend the same thing when things get weird) and reset my Preferences. Problem has gone away, but if something like this arises again I will remember that Darken mode might be an issue. Thanks.

Scott

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
———————————————————- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
———————————————————- http://www.usenet.com
SG
Scott Glasgow
Aug 24, 2006
"Mike Hyndman" wrote in message
"xenophon" wrote in message
[Photoshop 6.0]

After a long time doing things the hard way (eraser tool and a *lot* of "do-overs") I saw a thread regarding using layer masks for compositing multiple images into a collage. "Hmm," I thought, "that sounds a lot easier, and reversible, too." So, I decided to try it today.
One of my brother Eagles celebrated his 93rd birthday recently and I wanted to composite 5-6 photos of the celebration into a single collage image for the newsletter. I loaded a couple of the images, created a working layer copy for each, then added a layer mask to each working layer. Grabbed a large soft brush and set it to black and went to work. Great! Painting with black easily got rid of portions of the individual images I didn’t want. Then I grabbed the move tool, did a little repositioning of each layer to adjust the ultimate boundaries between the image portions in the collage.

Here’s where it gets wierd. After adjusting the positions, I went back to the brush, changed the brush color to white, and tried to add back in some of the stuff previously eliminated. Nothing. No white shows on the mask icon in the layers palette, no original image restored.
Now, I can immediately switch back to black and start erasing again, and I can see the little bounding box on the layer mask icon, so I know I have the mask properly selected. Repeated switching back and forth between white and black simply results in a growing area of black, the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).

This is probably something very simple that I am missing due to my lack of experience with layer masking, but it’s got me stumped. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. Thanks.

Scott
‘Tis a mystery! The only times I have seen something similar is when both black and white didn’t seem to work because
i) wasn’t working in normal mode and
ii) the wrong layer was active.
Sadly the above doesn’t seem to apply in your case. When the unexplained starts to happen, there is nothing to lose by deleting your prefs file. Restart PS with the ctrl+alt+shift keys depressed.

That got the job done, Mike. Closed PS, restarted and reset Preferences, created a new file, and everything works fine. I usually recommend that myself when things get weird, but since I was unfamiliar with layer masks I thought that it was just something that I was doing wrong. Anyway, everything’s copacetic. Thanks.

Scott

Try this.
Open a new image and duplicate the layer.
Add a layer mask to the new layer.
Hit D on the keyboard to set the colours to black and white. Select the brush tool and with the layer mask active (selected), paint on the image with black to make the painted area transparent (nothing below it)
Hit X on the keyboard to reverse the colours and repaint the transparent area to restore it to original state.

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
———————————————————- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
———————————————————- http://www.usenet.com
MH
Mike Hyndman
Aug 24, 2006
"Scott Glasgow" <paladinat.nospamfuse.net> wrote in message
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
"xenophon" wrote in message
… the white just does not seem to want to paint. I tried a 50% gray, and nothing happens when I paint in the black area, but as expected, painting in the remaining image area results in a semi-transparent area where painted(??).

This sounds like you have your brush set to darken mode. When chasing a problem like this, simplify. Try painting on a new image and see if you can get both black and white.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/

Could be Mike. I took Mike Hyndman’s advice (since I tend to recommend the same thing when things get weird) and reset my Preferences. Problem has gone away, but if something like this arises again I will remember that Darken mode might be an issue. Thanks.
Scott
Glad to help, it can be a bit of a rascal sometimes the ol’ preferences file.;)

Regards

Mike H
JM
John McWilliams
Aug 24, 2006
Mike Hyndman wrote:
"Scott Glasgow" <paladinat.nospamfuse.net> wrote in message
Could be Mike. I took Mike Hyndman’s advice (since I tend to recommend the same thing when things get weird) and reset my Preferences. Problem has gone away, but if something like this arises again I will remember that Darken mode might be an issue. Thanks.
Scott
Glad to help, it can be a bit of a rascal sometimes the ol’ preferences file.;)

It occurred to me that the white wasn’t really "the" white. Resetting prefs would, of course, remedy that.

John McWilliams

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections